Poems and Thoughts    by Frank Maurer

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My Chickens and Chez Panisse Restaurant. I started my polyculture 'Research Farm' in Davis, California, in 1978. I had completed teaching and research In Turkey; Lesotho, Africa; and Uppsala, Sweden. I had no vehicle yet, so I bought delivered animals from ne wspaper ads. After a year or two, I began raising white Cornish Cross chickens en masse. (I also raised various ducks, turkeys, and Embden geese.) With incubators and divided areas in my barn, I started chicks, delivered through the Post Office, (A practice started, I believe, by Benjamin Franklin, himself!) In weekly groups of 100 day-olds. For the chickens, my market was the famous Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California. The owner, Alice Waters, had created 'California Cuisine', Utilizing a restaurant garden just outside her back door. As her restaurant grew, she sent out 'Foragers' to suss out product. One day, such a Forager appeared on my farm. He had heard about my poultry and asked for a 'sample'. I gave him a bird to return to Berkeley to test it out. A few weeks later, after I learned they had done blind tests With Rocky-the-Range, a Pennsylvania product, and my bird, They wished to buy my birds (50!) each week. I agreed. We captured birds in darkness each Monday night--5 pounds live, only! Tuesday morning I loaded up the caged birds at 5:30 AM and drove to Stockton. There I unloaded the group, off to slaughter as they came out of the cages, Chatted with the slaughterhouse owner concerning future loads, And returned to my Davis farm (70 minutes) to commence the day's work. This went on for about 20 years with my lazy white 'free range' birds, When I learned of a red Cornish Cross (all were secret hybrids) Which had been 'discovered' in Germany by a Canadian group. There were finally two producers in California--one of which I chose. I told the restaurant my plan, as I had discovered That the red variety truly walked around in our summer heat. They agreed and I changed over my whole flock, Which took several weeks of raising up the new 'reds'. Well, things went along for a few weeks with the new group, When I suddenly received a call to come and talk. The chefs found the meat of the reds was too firm! They wanted the old 'whites' back again. I was in a quandary, deciding what to do. They were advertising a 'free range' product And I knew that the reds were exactly that. The meat was firmer, of course, because they ranged much more! For me, it was an ethical question in advertising. Even though it was very difficult for me business-wise, I had no choice but to stop producing for Chez Panisse Restaurant. A small business, especially farming, Is always with a perpetual challenge to survive! Frank Maurer 25 July 2024 1435 Hours.